The foundation made what may be its first medical research grant, awarding $500 to support a City Hospital physician’s study of the causes of poliomyelitis. John A. Toomey, M.D., who was also a professor of clinical pediatrics and contagious diseases at the medical school of Western Reserve University, continued to receive foundation backing through the early 1940s. One of the leaders of the international search for a suspected polio virus, Toomey was unable to confirm in exhaustive clinical trials the hypothesis that polio could be passed from one individual to another. The pre-eminence of his medical practice—he was one of the first physicians in the country to prescribe physical therapy for polio patients—was a contributing factor in City Hospital’s designation by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis as national respiratory care center in the 1950s.